I would assume if you keep the coin in an air-tite the private key would be good for a very very long time. The main thing that huts the coins is being handled not air (oils from your hands causes all the tarnish).

If one wanted to avoid the expense and risk of ANACS, could one shrink rap a pile of these and successfully prevent oxidation that way? Or even a simple zip lock bag?

I would imagine you could most definitely seal them with a food saver and they'd be good to go.

I'm pretty sure this is what I'll end up doing as the ANACS process seems expensive to me and quite frankly I wouldn't trust them. I realize there doesn't seem to be a fool proof way to get at the private key but you never know. In this way I see it as a different risk to sending in a gold coin for instance.

You can have these graded for as low as $19 per coin (3-4 week turnaround). For a coin worth $700+ I do not think $20 is a lot to spend on it.

I asked this question before in its own thread, so I hoped one of you might know.

The ANACS website mentions that one has to submit coins in Mylar flips. Some of my coins are in Airtite capsules, and others came in stapled cardboard squares, which I would prefer to keep in while being shipped. I would prefer ANACS open them once they receive them.

The flips seem like they could cause marks to the coin pressing against it, and the hologram could stick to the plastic flip.

Has anybody sent a coin in something other than a mylar flip to ANACS to be graded, and if so, was it accepted?

I asked this question before in its own thread, so I hoped one of you might know.

The ANACS website mentions that one has to submit coins in Mylar flips. Some of my coins are in Airtite capsules, and others came in stapled cardboard squares, which I would prefer to keep in while being shipped. I would prefer ANACS open them once they receive them.

The flips seem like they could cause marks to the coin pressing against it, and the hologram could stick to the plastic flip.

Has anybody sent a coin in something other than a mylar flip to ANACS to be graded, and if so, was it accepted?

Yeh, I send them in Coin Capsules or even plastic ziplock bags.

They just dont want you to send it plain in an envelope.

Bitcoin pioneer. An apostle of Satoshi Nakamoto. A crusader for a new, better, tech-driven society. A dreamer.

I asked this question before in its own thread, so I hoped one of you might know.

The ANACS website mentions that one has to submit coins in Mylar flips. Some of my coins are in Airtite capsules, and others came in stapled cardboard squares, which I would prefer to keep in while being shipped. I would prefer ANACS open them once they receive them.

The flips seem like they could cause marks to the coin pressing against it, and the hologram could stick to the plastic flip.

Has anybody sent a coin in something other than a mylar flip to ANACS to be graded, and if so, was it accepted?

I submitted my coin at the Long Beach Coin Expo. I had it in an airtite and the ANACS employee took it out and placed in a mylar flip. That's just the way the do things. On the other hand, I submitted a bunch of coins for PCGS, mostly Pandas in OMP and i had to cut out the OMP but was allowed to leave them in the air-tites then place them in the mylar flips. The truth is, if it wasn't for Casascious, ANACS would be totally useless.

what I'm interested in... Does the private key also degrade?I never opened a casascius coin, and all the coins I own are from 2013, so I'm not panicking. BUt I can imagine the private key could become unreadable. Does anybody know how it is actually stored?

Interesting question, I would not be surprised if the code is unreadable when your great grand kids try to redeem the funds next century.But on the other hand, maybe we will never find out - who want to redeem a year 2013 Casacius in year 2100 just for the experiment, the coin could be worth millions (not talking about bitcoin price, but as an artifact).(On the other hands "milions" of what? - also possible that dollars will not exist at that time...)

Personally I am a great fan of the silver Casacius, because not only do they carry a bitcoin value but also the value of silver.

millions of BTC?

I have a silver one that I would probably never sell or redeem (unless 1 BTC is 100000 USD and they offer me 10 BTC for the coin )

I have a silver one that will always be worth 10BTC+, because 10 is it's denomination . It would hurt to have to redeem it, though, and I doubt it will be necessary.

At the time I acquired it, the silver and BTC values were roughly equal, btw.

When I first started investigating BTC (when BTC was around 12 USD, december 2012) I landed on the casascius website. I was a silver bug so no surprises there... I saw the 1oz 10 BTC coin and calculated that it had 50 USD premium (or something like that). Decided not buy one LOL. I didn't own BTC (only faucet dust) so this possible purchase could have me incentivised me to buy some actual BTC, but it didn't happen.Then my exams came, and when I checked the price of 1 BTC again after the exams, it was >35 USD

Still very happy I managed to buy some BTC below 100 USD. And I am happy I have a silver casascius 1 BTC now But I will never forget my strupid decision to NOT buy the 10 BTC coin...

Should've been subbed to my newsletter,

Seems like yesterday. My last major buy was just over10 as i wasn't fast enough to grab the final dip to single digits just under10.

I remember changing my bearish tune at ~$13 (got back into BTC) and did another large purchase at around ~$17.50.

Whoa... I didn't know about that variety. Any idea what the addresses for them are? Or any other info/discussion about them?

Bitcoin is the first monetary system to credibly offer perfect information to all economic participants.But Bitcointalk & /r/bitcoin are heavily censored. bitco.in/forum, forum.bitcoin.com, and /r/btc are open.Best info on Casascius coins: http://spotcoins.com/casascius

...When I first started investigating BTC (when BTC was around 12 USD, december 2012) I landed on the casascius website. I was a silver bug so no surprises there... I saw the 1oz 10 BTC coin and calculated that it had 50 USD premium (or something like that). Decided not buy one LOL. I didn't own BTC (only faucet dust) so this possible purchase could have me incentivised me to buy some actual BTC, but it didn't happen.Then my exams came, and when I checked the price of 1 BTC again after the exams, it was >35 USD

Still very happy I managed to buy some BTC below 100 USD. And I am happy I have a silver casascius 1 BTC now But I will never forget my strupid decision to NOT buy the 10 BTC coin...

Heh... At one point, I had "5" typed into the casascius order form for the 10BTC gold-trim coins, but then got distracted by something. Came back to it a few days later and Mike had sold out of those coins! Oh well... Also had an order for several hundred BTC at ~$1.8 in November 2011 that never filled. The amount of near-misses and screw-ups I've had with bitcoin would amount to at least a half million dollars worth today. As molecular noted, we all have these stories...

Bitcoin is the first monetary system to credibly offer perfect information to all economic participants.But Bitcointalk & /r/bitcoin are heavily censored. bitco.in/forum, forum.bitcoin.com, and /r/btc are open.Best info on Casascius coins: http://spotcoins.com/casascius

Back in 2012 I was broke and paid my friend a 1 btc coin in exchange for a meal at Taco Bell. He sold it late last year for almost $800! Oh fun times

Instead of dropping candy into people's stockings for Christmas, I dropped Casascius coins. Did the trick, though - got people interested in bitcoin!

Is your friend into bitcoin now? Would he have been without the experience with the coin?

Bitcoin is the first monetary system to credibly offer perfect information to all economic participants.But Bitcointalk & /r/bitcoin are heavily censored. bitco.in/forum, forum.bitcoin.com, and /r/btc are open.Best info on Casascius coins: http://spotcoins.com/casascius

I see people selling Casascius coins and I see a lot of "MS64", "MS65", "MS66" ...What does it mean ?

It is a rating given by the ANACS rating company. People send their Casascius coins to them, they check the quality of the coins and whether there are any defects. After that they assign the grading numbers (M64,M65,etc), put in in an airtight case and mail it back to you. A higher number indicates a better quality coin.

It's also worth noting that the numismatic community widely considers ANACS to be a second-rate company, mostly because they're overly generous with their gradings (an ANACS MS68 might be a PCGS MS66-67). The first-rate grading services won't touch physical Bitcoins, as far as I know.

It's also worth noting that many different types of grading slabs have been counterfeited in the past. The careful purchaser examines the slab closely. The careful buyer also carefully examines the coin and determines their own grade instead of relying on the grade printed on the slab.

I see people selling Casascius coins and I see a lot of "MS64", "MS65", "MS66" ...What does it mean ?

"MS" stands for Mint State. The 1-70 scale is called the Sheldon Scale and it was established to provide a empirical number rating for the condition of a collectible numismatic coin. It is a numismatic standard and is not only used by ANACS, although some grading companies differ slightly in how the may evaluate a coin.

When buying a coin graded by an trusted independent grading company (ANACS, PCGS, NGC), you can be confident that the coin is genuine (not a Chinese fake) and in the condition listed on the slab. Sometimes is can be difficult to gauge the condition of a coin via digital pictures that can be altered. Currently, of the 3 major grading companies, only ANACS will grade the Casascius and other crypto-currency coins.

It's also worth noting that the numismatic community widely considers ANACS to be a second-rate company, mostly because they're overly generous with their gradings (an ANACS MS68 might be a PCGS MS66-67). The first-rate grading services won't touch physical Bitcoins, as far as I know.

It's also worth noting that many different types of grading slabs have been counterfeited in the past. The careful purchaser examines the slab closely. The careful buyer also carefully examines the coin and determines their own grade instead of relying on the grade printed on the slab.

REMEMBER: Buy the coin, not the slab.

I wouldn't say they are considered second-rate, but they are definitely not the most popular with the numismatic community, but as nubbins stated, they are the only "Big Three" grading company that will grade physical crypto-coins.

They are the oldest grading service company in the US and was created in the 1970s to help the coin industry overcome the growing coin counterfeit and altered coins in the market. It is true that slabs themselves are now being counterfeited, but most of the counterfeit slabs I have seen are from the "1st-rate" companies because of their popularity (PCGS and NGC)